Tube and conductor sets are used in many medical devices to provide fluid and electrical communication between device components.
The tube or tubes can provide a channel or passageway for the transport of fluids (either gases or liquids). As one example, sterile saline fluid may be supplied by a first tube to irrigate a surgical region, while a second tube may provide a vacuum to suction and collect the fluid periodically either during irrigation or after irrigation.
Depending on the particular medical device, the tubes may connect a tool portion of the medical device, which is temporarily received at the surgical site in the patient's body, to a pump or other external part of the device and/or to a supply connector built into the wall of a hospital or another fluid or vacuum source.
In many instances, these tube sets are constructed to also have an electrical conductor or conductors (sometimes called a multi-conductor when the wires are bundled together) that run in parallel with the tube or tubes. The electrical conductor or conductors may be used to communicate electrical signals between respective portions of the medical device. For example, the tool end of the device may be held by the physician and controls on the tool end may be manipulated by the physician in order to indicate to the connected pump via the conductor or conductors that saline should be provided or a vacuum should be drawn.
The production of such combined tube and conductor sets is conventionally a continuous process in which one or more tubes are extruded and fused together with the one or more conductors. Then, either a spool of the tube and conductor set or a shorter pre-cut length is supplied to the device manufacturer.
During further assembly of the medical device, an assembler typically takes each of the ends of the cut lengths and tears or peels apart the tube(s) and conductor(s) from one another to separate them from one another. These separated ends can then have connectors attached to them and be further installed in the medical device.